The Golden Illusion

Chapter One ~ 1869-1

Chapter One ~ 1869The Marquis of Darleston took a sip of champagne.

As he did so, he told himself that there was really no need for champagne since the sea was calm and he seldom drank during the daytime unless there was a necessity for it.

Seated in his First Class cabin aboard the Steamship that carried passengers between Dover and Calais, his eye fell on his despatch box and he thought that he might well pass the time in reading some of the memoranda that the Prime Minister had given him.

But just as his hand went out towards it, the door of the cabin opened and to his surprise a woman came rushing in.

The Marquis was about to tell her that the cabin was private and that she had made a mistake when he saw her face and realised that she was frightened and obviously very young.

With his first look at her, the Marquis also realised she was extremely pretty.

“I am – sorry,” she stammered in a soft breathless voice, “b-but could I p-please stay here for a moment?”

She looked over her shoulder as she spoke, as if to make certain that the cabin door was firmly closed and then she added,

“There is a man – he will not – leave me alone.”

The Marquis rose to his feet.

“Come and sit down,” he suggested. “I will deal with anyone who is making himself unpleasant.”

He would have moved towards the door, but the young woman’s hand went out as if to stop him.

“No – no, please,” she said. “I don’t want any trouble. It was – my fault for going up on deck, but people were being sick down below even though it is so calm.”

The Marquis indicated a chair.

“Sit down. I will give you a glass of champagne. You will feel better after it.”

She made no protest and he poured some of the champagne from the bottle cooling in an ice-bucket into a glass that stood on the tray beside it.

He turned to hand the glass to the woman and saw that he had not been mistaken in his first impression of her. She was lovely, in fact quite unusually so.

At the same time he could see that she was plainly and quietly dressed.

“Surely you are not travelling alone?” he asked. “Someone is with you?”

“There was – no one who could accompany me,” she answered in a low voice.

She took the glass from him and looked at it doubtfully.

“I have – never drunk champagne before,” she said after a moment, “but Mama often spoke about it.”

She felt as if the Marquis was waiting for an explanation and then added,

“My mother was French.”

“I think perhaps we should introduce ourselves,” he said with a smile, re-seating himself on another chair. “I am the Marquis of Darleston.”

“My name is Linetta Falaise.”

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mademoiselle Falaise,” the Marquis said with a smile that most women found irresistible.

Linetta made a little inclination of her head that he thought was attractively graceful, but then he told himself that she had an unusual grace about her every movement.

Perhaps it was because she was so small-boned that in appearance she seemed little more than a child and there was something very young and untouched about the small oval face with its very large eyes and tiny straight nose.

She did not look French, the Marquis told himself, and yet there was definitely something un-English about her, despite her hair, which was very fair indeed.

Her eyes were unexpectedly the grey-blue of a stormy sea and perhaps it was her French ancestry that had given her her dark eyelashes in an almost startling contrast to her hair.

As if she was aware of what he was thinking, Linetta went on a little nervously,

“My mother came from Normandy, so she had fair hair unlike most Frenchwomen – and my father was also blond.”

“You have been to France before?” the Marquis asked and it was more of a statement than a question.

Linetta shook her head,

“No,” she answered.

“But now you are going to your relatives in Normandy?”

“I have no – relatives. I am going to a – friend in Paris.”

“Then perhaps she is meeting you at Calais?”

Again Linetta shook her head.

“No, I must find my own way, but I am sure that everything will be – all right once I am there.”

There was a doubt in her voice that the Marquis did not miss.

Then he told himself that it was none of his business. It would be a mistake to become embroiled in a stranger’s affairs and he must concern himself only with the somewhat difficult task that awaited him once he reached Paris.

Equally he found that he could not help being curious about Linetta Falaise.

It was not only her attractions which were obvious enough, it was also it seemed to him, although he thought it absurd, there was something different about her from the average young woman he met in London and on his travels.

She had taken a few small sips of the champagne and now she said,

“Mama was right. She always claimed that champagne had an exciting taste about it that is quite different from other wines.”

“You sound as if you are an expert,” the Marquis smiled.

Linetta looked confused.

“I do not wish to sound presumptuous,” she said, “it is just that Mama knew about wines and she taught me how to choose a good one, although we could seldom afford to drink anything but water.”

She smiled at him as she spoke as if it was a joke and he told himself that it was ridiculous that she should be travelling alone.

It was quite obvious that she would be insulted by the attentions of strange men who would think that an unattached woman, especially one so pretty, was fair game.

“What made you come into this cabin?” he then asked her.

Linetta dropped her eyes and he thought that a faint flush relieved the pallor of her cheeks.

“I saw – you come aboard, my Lord,” she replied, “and I thought how – distinguished you looked.”

She hesitated and the blush deepened.

“I somehow – felt that I would be – safe with you.”

“You are quite safe,” the Marquis nodded gravely. “At the same time I think it is a great mistake for you to travel all the way to Paris without the protection of a chaperone.”

“I know quite well it is – incorrect,” Linetta answered, “but there was – nothing I could do – about it.”

*

She had not been able to believe what she was hearing when Mademoiselle Antigny’s tired voice had said a little above a whisper,

“I have been – thinking about you, Linetta. You will have to go to my – niece in Paris. There is – nowhere else. Nowhere!”

“Don’t talk like that, mademoiselle,” Linetta begged her. “You will get well – you must.”

But even while she spoke with passionate intensity, she had known in her heart that there was no hope.

She had seen the doctor’s face when he came from Mademoiselle’s room the first time she had sent for him.

She had known then, even while he spared her feelings, that the Governess she had known and loved ever since she had been a child was dying.

“There is – something I have to tell you,” Mademoiselle Antigny said with what Linetta knew was a tremendous effort.

“What is it?” she enquired. “But you must not tire yourself.”

“I meant to tell you this a long time ago,” Mademoiselle replied, “but I kept – putting it off, thinking there was no hurry. But now I have – not very long.”

Linetta’s fingers tightened on the old woman’s hand as it lay on the sheets and she put her head forward so that Mademoiselle would not have to raise her voice and waited.

“After your mother – died two years ago,” Mademoiselle began, “the money she lived on was – stopped.”

“Stopped?” Linetta repeated in surprise.

“There was a letter saying that the allowance she had received every three months after your father died would no longer be – continued. You will find it in the – middle drawer of my desk.”

This sentence had taken a great deal of Mademoiselle’s strength and now she lay fighting for her breath and after a moment Linetta asked her,

“Then what money have we been spending?”

“My – savings.”

“Oh, no, mademoiselle! How could you have been so generous, so kind? I should have found work. I should not have let you spend your own money on me.”

“You would have had it anyway – when I was – dead,” Mademoiselle replied. “But now, dearest, it has all – gone!”

She gasped for air again and then she said,

“When I am dead you must sell – everything and with the money you receive for the house and the furniture, you must go to – Paris. I cannot write to my niece, but you can write – the letter for me and I will – sign it.”

“How do you know that she will want me?” Linetta asked.

“Marie-Ernestine is a kind girl. She will – look after you and find you – employment,” Mademoiselle replied.

Then she choked and Linetta rose quickly to bring a tablet and a glass of water from the washstand.

These were tablets, which the doctor had prescribed to be taken only in an emergency, but she knew that, if Mademoiselle was to dictate the letter as she wished to do, this was in fact an emergency.

She supported the Governess’s shoulders skilfully with one hand and having given her the tablet held the glass of water to her lips.

As she swallowed, Mademoiselle Antigny lay back for a moment or two against the pillows with her eyes closed.

Linetta went to the desk and brought back some writing paper and a pencil.

It would be better, she thought, if she took down what her Governess wished to say first as quickly as possible and then copy it out neatly.

After a few moments Mademoiselle Antigny’s eyes opened and she said,

“As I was telling you – Linetta, Marie-Ernestine is a – kind girl. I helped to care for her until her – mother summoned her to – Paris.”

She gave a little sigh.

“Poor Marie-Ernestine. She hid herself in the attic in despair – she could not bear the thought of – leaving the countryside. She wrote to me telling me about the Convent School where she was sent by a – friend of her mother’s. Since then she has written to me every – Christmas.”

“Yes, I remember how pleased you were to receive her letters,” Linetta pointed out.

“Marie-Ernestine must have found good – employment in Paris,” Mademoiselle Antigny went on. “She has not told me what it is – but her mother did sewing and housework for some distinguished families. Marie-Ernestine wrote this Christmas from a new address in the – Avenue de Friedland.”

Mademoiselle Antigny closed her eyes for a moment as if she realised that she was using up a great deal of her strength.

“Take down the letter – my dearest,” she said and Linetta obeyed her.

The letter had been the only thing that gave her a feeling of protection after Mademoiselle had died and the house where she had lived with her mother ever since she could remember had been sold.

She knew that Mademoiselle had been wise in her suggestions. It was impossible for her to five alone.

In Paris, she told herself, Marie Ernestine would find her work of some sort and at least she would have one friend who she could turn to in trouble.

It seemed extraordinary, as she thought about it, that there were so few people in her life, which had centred entirely around her mother and her Governess.

They had been very isolated in the little village of Oakley where her mother had lived ever since she had married.

It was deep in the heart of the country. There was a stagecoach that passed through it twice a week, although no one seemed to get off and only very occasionally one of the villagers travelled on it into Oxford.

Her mother never seemed to wish to go to Oxford, Linetta remembered.

There was really nothing they needed and they had been content in the small house with its pretty garden, which Mrs. Falaise tended without a gardener.

‘Perhaps it is because Mama is French that she knows so few English people,’ Linetta would often tell herself as she grew older.

But she knew that the real reason was that her mother did not wish to meet strangers. She liked being alone, until, when Linetta was eleven, Mademoiselle Antigny, who had been teaching her, came to live with them.

It had been a successful arrangement because Mademoiselle after many years of teaching the children of Noblemen’s families both in France and England, had retired to a tiny cottage in the village that had been provided for her by her last English employer.